West Virginia: A History

Chapter 4: Advance Across the Alleghenies

Advance Across the Alleghenies The Lure of TransmontaneLands. The English victory over the French in 1763did not openthe Ohio Valleyto settlement.On the contrary,inthe very year that Forbes occupied the Forks of the Ohio, Sir William Johnson, acting in behalf of Pennsylvania, promised the Iroquois in the Treaty of Easton to close the part of the colony west of the Alleghenies to settlement. Colonel Henry Bouquet, the commandant at Fort Pitt, later extended that commitment to include transmontane Maryland and =rginia. Angered by the promisesof Johnson and Bouquet,Virginia speculatorsfell back upon a proclamation of Governor Robert Dinwiddie in 1754setting aside two hundred thousand acres of land west of the mountainsfor Virginia military officers in the French and Indian War. Severalof the officers, includingGeorge Washington and George Mercer, declared that they would "leave no stone untumed in order to acquire the forbidden lands. Governor Francis Fauquier later interceded with the English Board of Trade, but it refused to approve the military grant. Fauquierachievedmore successwithrespecttothe claimsof the Greenbrier and Loyal companies. Their lands had been "tolerably seated for some time" buthad been vacated duringthe French and IndianWar. The Board of Tradetook refuge in ambivalence, declining to render "any explicit Opinion" and enjoining the governor from any action that might arouse the Indiam2 Both companies and prospective settlers took advantage of official uncertainty to reoccupy their lands. In 1762 Archibald Clendenin settled two miles west of Lewisburg, and Frederick See and Felty Yocumtook up tracts on Muddy Creek. By the summer of 1763 more than fifty persons were again living in the Greenbrier region. Pontiac's Uprising. The British victory in the French and Indian War producedgreatanxiety amongthe westernIndians.Settlers, ofteninthe guiseof hunters, continuedto move intothe region aroundFort Pitt and otherparts of the 'Stanislaus Murray Hamilton, ed.,Leners to Washingtonand Accompanying Papers, 5 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898-1902),vol. 2, 159. 2Quotedin Jack M. Sosin, Whitehalland the Wilderness:TheMiddle WestinBritish Colonial Policy, 1760-1775(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 45-46. Aaoss the Alleghenies 27 Ohio Valley. Moreover, reports reached the Indians that Amhersthad advocated infectingthe tribes with smallpoxand that Bouquethad urged the use of trained dogs to hunt and destroy them. When Amherst announced in 1762 that the customary presents to the tribes would not be distributed during the coming winter, unrest reached a head. Led by Pontiac, an Ottawachief, the western Indianslaid plans for surprise military attacks that would undermine British power in the Ohio Valley and confine their settlementsto areas east of the Allegheny Mountains. On May 7, 1763,Pontiac struck at Detroit, and laterthat month Shawneeand Delaware laid siege to Fort Pitt. Bands of Indians assaulted other posts, and by the end of July only Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Fort Niagara remained in British hands. An expedition under Captain James Dalyell relieved besieged Detroit, and another, under Bouquet, defeated the Indians at Bushy Run and raised the siegeof Fort Pitt. By the summerof 1764the British had broken the power of the Indian confederacy, but Pontiac did not make peace until the following year. 'The Shawnee carried Pontiac's War to the West Virginia frontiers with attacks in the Greenbrier region and on the upper Potomac, particularly along the South Branch and the Cacapon. In the summerof 1763about sixty Shawnee led by Cornstalkenteredthe Greenbrierregion. Posing as friends, small parties visited the Muddy Creek settlements, includingthe homes of Frederick Seeand Felty Yocum, and killed or captured every person there. They moved on to the Big Levels, present Lewisburg, to the house of Archibald Clendenin, where about fifty persons had gathered to feast on three elk that Clendeninhad killed. The unsuspecting settlers invited the Indians tojoin them. After they had eaten, the Shawnee sprang their attack. One man made his escape, but the Indians killed or captured all the other settlers. Governor Fauquier ordered a thousand militiamen under Colonel Adam Stephen and Major Andrew Lewis to man small forts, establish guards at mountain passes, and pursue Indians making forays into the settlements. Peace did not return to the West Virginia frontiers, however, until Bouquet defeated the Indians at Bushy Run and Sir William Johnson concluded peace with the tribes at Niagara. The Prodamationof 1763.Stunned by Pontiac's uprising and groping for some policy that might mitigatethe fury of the Indians, the British government on October 7,1763, issued a sweepingproclamationforbiddingsettlementwest of the Allegheny Mountains. Its actions angered both prospective settlers and land speculators.'The only redeeming feature that they saw in the proclamation was a...